


Mamatoshi

by MistVolturn



Category: Notice Me Senpai! (Video Game)
Genre: Bisexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, First Love, High School, M/M, Original Character(s), Polyamory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-07-26 21:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7590553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistVolturn/pseuds/MistVolturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Wakatoshi accidentally stumbles upon his classmate being targeted by some bullies. Wakatoshi scares them off and offers protection to the small kid and his friends who were also being bullied. Everyone is afraid of him anyways, he might as well put that to good use and help a classmate out. He never imagined where this act of kindness would end up leading him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so hear me out. Wakatoshi as this scary delinquent with three smol cuties following him around and he protects them from bullies like some sort of mama duck with her ducklings. Yeah I ship poly Wakatoshi/Izumi/Yuu/Ai. It is the best ship. Fight me.

Wakatoshi felt proud of himself. He had not gotten in a fight all week. That had to be a new record. After meeting the new cute kouhai who worked at the café he had wanted to turn his life around in order to become the gentleman that she deserved to be with. And he would say it had been a success so far. He had cut his beloved pompadour and removed most of his piercings. He still sported an earring in the shape of a star since kouhai had said she thought it was cool so he kept it.

Actually, it was to her he was headed right now. Well, to the place where she worked at least. Class had ended a while ago but he kept hanging around the school entrance. He didn’t want to head there right after class. He feared he would seem too desperate. He liked kouhai but he felt rather unsure. He had tried to become a better person but he was still a delinquent. She deserved some well-educated person with a nice stable job who she could bring home to her parents without being ashamed. Basically the opposite of someone like him. Because despite his efforts, people’s opinion of him had not changed. He was still the trouble kid, the one you had to stay away from. It pissed him off. He kicked a rock on the sidewalk. It hit on of the wheels of a car. He decided he had lingered enough and started making his way towards the café.

Then he decided it wasn’t a good idea to come bursting into the café right now considering how annoyed and worked up he felt, he might accidentally lash out at the wrong people, so he decided to take a walk first to clear his head. He walked through some empty halls without caring too much where he was exactly. It wasn’t actually allowed to loiter in the school after it was over but it was one of the few things that calmed him down so screw the rules. He needed this. The eeriness of the building after school hours was soothing to him.

He had just turned a corner when he came across a strange scene. There was a small group of people standing in a circle around something. This was not normal. He approach them and saw that the something that they had trapped and were pushing against a wall was one of his classmates. The small blond one. Wakatoshi couldn’t remember his name but it was obvious this wasn’t right. Wakatoshi walked up to the group.

“Hey guys. ‘Sup? Having fun with my friend over there?” He leaned against the wall as he called out to them. They must not have noticed him approaching for they visibly jumped in surprise. The guys produced a string of curse words and moved away from their victim. Wakatoshi saw that his classmate was covered in food. Wakatoshi walked up to the boy, put his arm around him and pulled him away from the group. The boy was red-faced and shaking. Wakatoshi looked at the group of guys. They were some fellow third years, he had seen them around school a few times. He looked back down at the little boy who seemed unable to do anything but stare at the ground. Whatever it took to hold in the tears. Wakatoshi wasn’t even sure he was breathing, that’s how concentrated the boy was on making sure he was not crying in front of his bullies. He looked up at the group of guys who didn’t dare approach him.

“Listen up! This guy right here is my friend so from now on only come near him if you wanna end up at the bottom of Tokyo bay with your feet in a cement block! SO SCRAM!” he yelled out. The blood drained from the bullies’ faces.

“Yeah, whatever we were done with him anyways. Come on, let’s go,” one of them said and the group moved away hastily under Wakatoshi’s watchful eyes.

Once they were gone Wakatoshi brought his attention to the little boy he had put his arm around. He was a mess. There was rice and other food in his hair and on his clothes.

“Look at you. We gotta get you cleaned up,” Wakatoshi said as he pulled the boy with him in search of a restroom. The kid barely reacted as they walked, still focusing on fighting back tears. Once he had found a restroom, Wakatoshi dragged him to the sink. The boy stood still for a few seconds before breaking down completely and curled up into a ball on the floor. Wakatoshi wasn’t sure how to react so he just stood there. The boy was crying hysterically and almost as quickly as he had broken down, he collected himself. He stood up and breathed in and out repeatedly. He looked up at Wakatoshi. He opened his mouth, but his throat had to still be recovering from the crying for the kid wasn’t able to produce any sound.

“Just focus on cleaning yourself up for now,” Wakatoshi suggested. The boy nodded. He opened the tap and started washing rice out of his hair. Wakatoshi didn’t know what to do. He certainly couldn’t leave the boy alone, but just standing there doing nothing was awkward so he helped the boy wash out the food on the back of his head as weird as that felt too. The boy stared up at him as he ran his fingers through his hair. Oh come on don’t make this more awkward than it has to be.

“Though it would be hard for you to get it all if you can’t see it.” The boy nodded and smiled politely up at him.

Once they had gotten all the food out of his hair, the boy seemed to have calmed down enough to talk.

“Thank you,” he said earnestly.

“Eh, don’t mention it.”

The boy looked down at his filthy clothes. He unbuttoned his shirt and started washing it as best as he could under the sink. As the boy stood there shirtless, Wakatoshi couldn’t help but stare at him. He was so small and his skin looked so soft. The boy tried to wring dry his shirt as best as he could but it clearly wasn’t wearable.

“Hold on. You can borrow my gym clothes for now. Wait here, I’ll go get them.” Wakatoshi felt the boy was okay enough to be left alone for a few minutes while he got him some dry clothes. When he returned the boy was wearing his wet shirt while washing his trousers. Wakatoshi couldn’t help but stare. He felt weird. It was a weird sight.

“Here are some dry clothes for you” he said as he handed them over.

“And I was just done here,” he said and smiled. “Thank you. Thank you so much for everything.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

The boy removed his wet shirt and stood there in nothing but his underwear. It was dark blue. Strange, he thought the boy would be the kind to only wear white. Wait, why was he even think about that in the first place? He had seen the kid change many times before for gym class so why did seeing him almost naked make him feel weird this time? Well it had been a weird day. The boy was done changing and Wakatoshi realized he had stared at him intensely the entire time. Well now he was going to think he was a some weirdo who stares at people as they change. And his gym clothes were too big for the boy. But, somehow, it actually looked kinda nice.

“Hey,” the boy said. “I can’t go home like this so I’ll just hang around a bit longer and wait for my clothes to dry. You don’t have to stay.” The kid wanted him to leave. Of course he did. The scary delinquent who creepily stares at people as they change. Man, what a reputation he would have after today. Well, at least he was going to make sure the boy was okay.

“Here as in at school?”

“I…I guess so? I’m just going to wait here in the bathroom.”

“A teacher might see you and you’ll get in trouble. And clothes take a long time to dry. How about we go to the café and see if they have a radiator you can hang your clothes on?”

“That… is a good idea actually”, the boy said as he smiled at him. There was a strange feeling in Wakatoshi’s stomach.

“Come on, let’s go then.” Wakatoshi picked up the boy’s wet clothes and they walked silently towards the café. He was really going to have to ask the boy’s name. They arrived and after explaining how he had accidentally spilled water on himself while washing his hands and how Wakatoshi had been kind enough to help him, the kouhai took the clothes and went to hang them up. They were about to close up but she decided they could stay until the clothes were done drying.

“And what would you like to drink, Izumi-senpai?” So that was his name.

“Oh,” he looked down and blushed, “you really don’t have to go through the trouble-“

“Nonsense! You need something to warm yourself up!” she insisted.

“Eh? Well, some green tea then, please. Thank you!”

“And for you, Wakatoshi-senpai?” She smiled at him.

“For me too if it isn’t too much trouble of course, please,” he replied.

“Okay! I’ll be back soon,” she said and left.

They were left alone in the café. They were seated across each other and for a while neither one of them said anything.

“So, you like green tea too?” Izumi inquired.

“Yeah, sure.”  
“I must say, I never thought of you as the tea drinking kind.”

“Oh, what did you think me of then?”

“As someone who took their coffee black, you know?”

“Is that so.” Wakatoshi didn’t care much for this small talk. “Hey kid-“

“We’re the same age, Wakatoshi.”

“Kid, why were those guys doing that to you?”

That’s when kouhai returned with their drinks and informed them the clothes were drying and would be wearable soon. Then she left to take care of the café before closing. Wakatoshi tasted his tea. It was delicious as always. Izumi added some honey and cinnamon to his tea. Wakatoshi stared at him as he stirred his drink.

“So, are you going to answer my question? I mean I did threaten to kill them, I might at least know why.”

Izumi looked down at his hands. He didn't say anything. They just sat there sipping their tea in silence as the minutes crept by. Then Izumi opened his mouth.

“It started one day, a few months ago. In the cafeteria. I don’t know why, but they were throwing food at us. By us, I mean Ai, Yuu and myself. Well, they were throwing food everywhere, but it hit us a lot. They made sure not to do it when any of the teachers were looking. We got sick of it so I walked up to them and asked them to stop and so from then on, they made sure to target us in particular. We tried sitting somewhere else far away and they followed us. We tried ignoring them and that made them try harder to get a reaction out of us. We tried telling a teacher. A quick scolding, one day of peace and they were back at it and now they wanted revenge for getting them in trouble. So I tried standing up to them. That only made things worse.” Izumi was breathing heavily but eventually he gave up struggling against the tears and started crying again. “Nothing works! I just don’t know what to do anymore!”

Wakatoshi was left speechless. Izumi was still sobbing. Wakatoshi had had no idea that his classmates had been suffering like this. But he, the scary delinquent no one wanted to be around, who always sat alone for lunch, who was always picked last for group projects, he had managed to help him. Maybe he could put his image to good use for once.

“Hey, I told them off. If they mess with you or your friends again, you just come to me. Okay?”

Izumi looked up at him. The tears were slowly rolling down his cheeks. Then his face lit up. His green eyes were sparkling. Wakatoshi couldn’t help but think the kid was… cute.

“Thank you!” Izumi exclaimed.

“Mhm.”

Then Izumi looked worried.

“You’re not actually going to kill them, are you?”

Wakatoshi smirked. “That depends entirely on them.”

Izumi’s face turned pale and he got a stern look on his face. “Don’t do it, Wakatoshi. Please don’t break the law. I mean they deserve it, I don’t want you to get in trouble for my sake.” 

Wakatoshi burst out laughing. Izumi looked surprised.

“Oh man, Izumi! You don’t think I’ll actually kill anyone, do you?”

“No, of course not,” Izumi added quickly, looking down in embarrassment. What a weird yet amusing kid. They finished their tea as kouhai returned with the dried clothes. Izumi went into a room to change. He came back and returned Wakatoshi’s gym clothes. Izumi thanked him again and Wakatoshi gave up on trying to make the boy stop thanking him. They paid for their drinks and started walking in the direction of the school gates. Wakatoshi was just going to head home as the sun was already setting, when Izumi tugged at his arm.

“Hey, Wakatoshi…”

“Yeah?”

“Is it fine if I sit with you from now on?”

It was a weird scene. There they stood in the sunset, Izumi holding on to Wakatoshi’s sleeve like his life depended on it (then again it sorta did) while blushing and looking down at his feet. Izumi looked up to meet Wakatoshi’s gaze. His eyes were filled with determination. It was all like some strange confession. 

“Yeah, sure. My table is free anyways.”

Izumi’s face lit up even more. Wakatoshi could swear his eyes were sparkling.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!”

Izumi let go of his sleeve.

“Well, I’m going home now. Thank you!” Then he ran off. Honestly what a weird kid. Wakatoshi started making his way home as well. 

Once he was on the train Wakatoshi realised that despite having been to the café, he had not once thought of his kouhai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I was thinking of writing myself as the kouhai, but I like her being a girl cuz bi Waka-chan is best Waka-chan. Also this was supposed to be a short one-shot for that contest. Haha. Woops. I’m actually liking this. Might turn it into a longer fic since I didn’t have time to include the two other ones. And whether I win or not doesn’t really matter anymore. I have not been in the mood to write fanfiction for years but thanks to wanting to participate in this contest, I’ve found my love for writing fanfiction again so either way I’m already a winner in my own eyes. Thanks for helping me get over my writer’s block ^^


	2. Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look who's not dead! 
> 
> A million thanks to @holdinglines for proofreading!

When Wakatoshi came home, his father, Tadashi, a short round man with the same orange hair but showing singes of balding, was cooking dinner and whistling cheerily. Wakatoshi dumped his backpack in the entrance, walked past the table set for one and joined his father in the kitchen. 

“Ah, look who we have here,” his father chuckled while handing him an extra plate. “Welcome home, son! Dinner is almost ready, mind helping me set the table and clean up a bit in here?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

They got seated at the table and Tadashi was beaming with joy, even more than usual. Probably since his son was eating dinner with him for once and not hanging out who knows where and getting into trouble. Little did he know that that lately ‘who knows where’ was in fact a cute café at Wakatoshi’s school.

“So, Dad, how was work?” 

“Good. The usual. Some clients were troublesome.” He sighed deeply. “We do the design just like they ask and then they have changed their minds and have a completely different design in mind so we can start all over. And of course navy blue’s no longer a good colour either. It has to be shamrock instead.” Tadashi rolled his eyes. “Annoying, but that’s just the way it is. How was school?”

“Weird.”

His father laughed. “Well that’s just how things are at your school. Or do you mean even weirder than usual?”

“More than usual, but in a good way, I guess. But kinda bad too. I don’t know.”

His father watched him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“So there’s this kid in my class. Izumi.”

“I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned him before.”

“Yeah, I haven’t really talked to him before today either.” Wakatoshi stuffed some food into his mouth, giving himself some more time to think over how he could best tell what had happened. “Well, today I ran into him after class. He was surrounded by bullies. They were throwing food at him.”

His father gasped. “Oh dear!” 

“So I helped him out. Dealt with the bullies and helped him clean himself.”

“When you say ‘dealt with the bullies’ do you mean…?”

“I said he was my friend and they’d have to answer to me if they ever did something like that again.”

His father’s face relaxed but he didn’t say anything, allowing Wakatoshi to finish his story. 

“Apparently, this was something that has been going on for months. And not only with him but some of his friends too.” Wakatoshi started feeling full but forced down some more food. “So I said that they just had to come to me if those guys cause trouble again.” 

“Do you think he’ll ask you for help if it happens again? Has he tried telling a teacher?”

Wakatoshi raised an eyebrow. “Dad, when has telling a teacher ever stopped bullying? But yeah, he tried telling a teacher. And he tried ignoring them. And he tried standing up to them.”

His father sighed. “It’s never that easy, eh?” 

“Well, I took him to the school café where we chatted for a bit.” Wakatoshi poked the small amount of food remaining on his plate. “About his situation and his friends. He asked if they could sit with me for lunch from now on. And we’re all in the same class so that should keep the bullies away.” 

“Let’s hope so,” his father said. “Now, I didn’t know your school had a café?” 

Wakatoshi shuffled uncomfortably in his chair and looked down at his plate. “Oh yeah, did I never mention that? You know that female student? She works there.”

“Yes, the one female student you school has,” his father chuckled to himself. “Poor girl, having to fit in amongst you guys.”

“I think she’s doing a fine job fitting in. She’s made a lot of friends already.” Wakatoshi sipped some water and refrained from mentioning that most of her friends, including himself, had ulterior motives in mind. “And she was nice enough to let us stay in the café after closing hours today so Izumi could dry off. She’s a very friendly person.”

“That’s good to hear. Is it a nice café?”

“Yeah, it’s cosy there. I go there sometimes after school. Their green tea is pretty good.”

His father nodded and stood up. “Anyways, I’m done with eating and by the looks of your empty plate so are you. Was it good?”

“Yeah.”

“Help me clean up?”

“Yeah, no problem.” 

After they were done, his father sat down in the sofa to watch some TV and Wakatoshi went to his room to spend the rest of the evening on the internet. He watched the newest episode of a Scandinavian crime show he was following and went to English speaking forums to look up what people made of the ending since in a big plot twist the serial killer had been revealed to the audience but not to the other characters. He had struggled with the language barrier at first, but lately his English had improved so much he understood almost everything without having to look anything up. 

The reactions were pretty mixed and Wakatoshi couldn’t help but roll his eyes at all those who complained at either how out of the blue it was or how they had seen it coming from episode one. He personally thought it had been build up pretty well and made sense without giving too much away at the same time, but he refrained from responding. Wakatoshi rarely posted anything himself as it meant starting a never-ending argument with idiots, and he enjoyed reading other people’s opinions more.  
A bit later, he heard his father walk to the bathroom. He popped in for a quick ‘good night’ before going to sleep. Wakatoshi started up a first person shooter game on his computer and played for a while before logging off and getting ready for bed as well. He spent another hour on his phone browsing various social media before finally falling asleep. 

He woke up feeling well rested. He took a quick shower and ate breakfast while looking over the homework he had to do for today. An English vocabulary test in the morning and some math exercises in the afternoon. He’d study on the train and do the math at lunch. He finished his breakfast, packed his bag and left for school.  
The train was packed full. He skimmed over the vocabulary list that was centred on crime. It wasn’t a particularly difficult list, and especially not for him. Assassination, bludgeon, handcuffs, murderer… He knew pretty much all of it. He’d manage this test, no sweat. 

When he arrived at school, he spotted Izumi standing in front of the gate with two other smaller boys. They had to be his other friends that the bullies were targeting. They were looking at one of the other boys’ phone and chatting. Wakatoshi wasn’t sure if he should approach them or not so he decided to slow down his pace and walk past them to see if they would call out to him. When he had almost reached the group, Izumi looked up from his friend’s phone and saw him.  
“Hey, Wakatoshi!” He waved. He looked much better, almost as if the day before had never happened. 

Wakatoshi walked up to him. “Hey kid.”

“How are you doing today?”

“Fine. You? Better?”

“Ah, yes. Much, much better than yesterday thanks to you!”

“Well, could hardly get any worse.”

Izumi looked down in embarrassment. “Y-yeah, that’s true, I guess.”

Oh crap, he had said something dumb again. He glanced at Izumi’s friend, the one with bow and wings was staring at him with a neutral expression, while the other one who was holding the plushie was still on his overly decorated phone, oblivious to Wakatoshi’s presence.

“A-anyway, this is Ai,” Izumi gestured towards the boy in costume.

“Glad to make your acquaintance.” Ai bowed. 

“Euh, yeah. Same.” Wakatoshi nodded.

“And this is Yuu.” Izumi tapped the boy on the shoulder.

“What?” he said, finally looking up from his phone.

“Yuu, don’t be rude,” Ai said.

Yuu finally noticed Wakatoshi standing in front of him. “Oh, hello! You must be Wakatoshi? I’m Yuu. Sorry about that, I was taking pictures of my kitties.” 

“Oh, okay. Euh, hi,” Wakatoshi replied.

There fell an uncomfortable silence as Yuu went back to his phone, Ai stared at him and neither Izumi nor Wakatoshi seemed to know what to say after the introductions were done.

“So, everyone prepared for the English test?” Izumi finally asked.

Ai sighed heavily. “Why did you have to bring that up…”

“You mean you didn’t study? Again?”

“Hey, I did study! I studied a professional production of Romeo and Juliet that used the original text.”

“You mean you watched the Leonardo DiCaprio movie.”

“It still counts.”

Izumi rubbed his temples in exasperation just as the school bell rang. “The test doesn’t even have anything to do with Shakespeare!”

“We should head to class.” Yuu put away his phone, somehow managing to fit it and all its decorations inside his pocket. 

“Yeah,” Izumi said and the group started to move. Izumi looked back at Wakatoshi who was still standing still. “Are you coming?”

“Of course,” he replied and walked with them.

Underway, Izumi asked him about the English test.

“Mhm, yeah, I looked at the vocabulary list. Wasn’t all that hard.”

“Really?” Izumi said, blushing and looking at his feet as they walked. “I found it pretty difficult, though.”

“I had some problem with it too.” Yuu whistled. “So, on top of being so cool and kind, you must be really smart as well then, Wakatoshi.”

Wakatoshi almost stopped dead in his tracks. What had Yuu just called him? That made no sense. People never thought of guys who looked like him as ‘so cool’, ‘kind’ and ‘really smart’. Not to mention the nonchalant way he had said it, as if it was common knowledge. 

“See?” Ai said while Wakatoshi was still trying to process what Yuu had just said. “Wakatoshi said it was easy so I’ll be fine.”

“I wouldn’t trust my judgement on this, though,” Wakatoshi said. “I only looked at it briefly.”

“You didn’t study either, did you?” Izumi asked drily.

Ai laughed and patted Wakatoshi on the shoulder. “Then we’re in this together! Let’s give it our best shot!”

They had to end the conversation there, much to Ai’s relief as Izumi’s scolding got delayed for a little while longer. They found their seats, the teacher entered and class was about to start. Wakatoshi couldn’t focus on what the teacher was saying and just stared at his new protégées from his seat at the back. Izumi was paying attention and dutifully making notes. Yuu was doodling with his pen shaped like a flower. Wakatoshi noted the numerous keychains on Yuu’s backpack and pencil case and he wondered if that kid even owned an item that wasn’t decorated in an overly cute manner. Finally, Wakatoshi noticed Ai trying to stealthily go over the vocabulary list in a last minute attempt at studying. 

Wakatoshi was left feeling confused and unsure of what he had just gotten himself into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took forever to write and edit. Mainly cuz I don't feel like writing unless there are 10 important deadlines I'm trying to avoid. But hey I have a plot and an amazing proofreader and plenty of deadlines so next chapter should be out much sooner (I'm guessing january or february). If you want to keep up with my writing process or bother me about other things, feel free to check out my twitter @MistVolturn as I usually vent there when stuck on writing.
> 
> Fun fact: I saw a girl writing with a flower pen in a meeting a while back so that's why Yuu has one. And that flower was not subtle at all. Like I could see it from the other side of the room. It was too cute to not include.


End file.
